


A Deal

by Umbrella_ella



Series: A Fair Trade [Publisher/Author Verse] [1]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, author!Belle, publisher!Gold, this is just a pile of fluff to keep the angst at bay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-22
Updated: 2018-08-22
Packaged: 2019-06-30 23:18:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15761769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Umbrella_ella/pseuds/Umbrella_ella
Summary: Wherein Gold, a harsh and selective publisher, makes Belle French an offer he hopes she'll turn down because it's terms are impossible to meet.





	A Deal

**Author's Note:**

> These 'verse snippets are all cross-posted to tumblr, but I wanted to organize them so that I wouldn't lose them.

“Frankly, Miss French, I’ve seen better drivel in the women’s rags at the dentist office. If this is all you have, then I suggest you find someone else to publish your work.”

It should have ended there, with a slow, crackling breath on the other end of the line and a final click. It hadn’t. Instead, all five feet, three inches of Belle French, aspiring author stands tall in front of him, arms crossed and, apparently, livid.

Belle French is not, or at least up until this very moment, terribly imposing. In fact, her eyes were large and owlish, and while she was far from a girl, she had an innocence about her, a persistent stubborn quality that R. Artemis Gold had thought very little of.

Now, however, that cool gaze snaps to his own, her blue eyes steeled for a fight. Her arms tighten minutely, and he wonders if she’d meant to do that, because she steps just to the edge of his desk, hip jostling the neat array of pens lined up.

Gold swallows. He’s not particularly afraid– he’s faced bigger and stronger people who he’s pissed off far more, but he is taken aback by the determined set of her jaw, by the way she leans in.

“Drivel?” she asks, accusingly, as if daring him to say it to her face.

“Yes, Miss French, drivel,” Gold hisses as his palms press to the cool surface of his oak desk, seeking purchase as he stands, “because this?” he gestures to the neat manuscript lying atop his desk, “is utter trash.”

He gathers it in his hand, and perhaps he’s had a long day, or his standards are impossibly high, but he tips it into the rubbish bin with a flourish. The woman before him is outraged, her face screwing up in indignation.

“How dare you!” she growls, bending to retrieve the bundle of papers from the bin.

Perhaps, upon seeing her blue eyes brighten with frustrated tears, he had been too harsh.

His heart nearly beats double time as he watches her hold the manuscript close, watches the way her fingers tighten around the sheaf of paper until her knuckles whiten.

Rumford Artemis Gold feels like a horrible human being, and on any other day, with any other person, he might hold his ground. If his dour mood is an almighty rock, however, then her tears are surely eroding his temperament. His heart hitches when she lets out a watery huff.

“Let’s–” he toys with a pen, watching as it rolls on the desk surface, glinting gold and black, “Let us make a deal. An… arrangement of sorts.”

He’s not sure what the deal entails, even as he offers it, but the way the woman’s face lightens, her pallor returning, cheeks flushing, seems to compel him.

“If, and only if, you agree to work through it, chapter by chapter, and turn them over to me for notations,” he considers her countenance very carefully, and watches as her shoulders release their tension, “I may publish this by, say, April.”

It’s January, and damn near impossible that Belle French has that sort of time, between her work in the library and in her father’s shop, but the way she brightens at the possibility makes him grit his teeth.

He never said he’d be fair about it.

But she extends her hand, offering it, and he tries to ignore the way her alabaster skin slides against his, the way her fingers clasp, strong and small and sure, around his palm. He desperately ingores the way his heart knocks against his ribs then, and clears his throat.

Before he can speak, her rosebud lips part, and a smirk curls her mouth, and he’s a bit worried at the spark in her eyes.

“Well, then, Mr. Gold, it seems we have a deal.”


End file.
